If you are going to tackle fermenters and kegs, I think a message to members saying anyone having more than two fermenters on the racks needs to put them in a storage spot. And same with any kegs over zero. Otherwise, I think you're wasting your time confirming that some people are abusing the shared racks and abusing paying for storage. We already did that. - Debbie D.

Not trying to figure out if current members are abusing the space. Hoping to instead get rid of the handful of fermenters that are just collecting dust and taking up needed space that likely belong to people who haven't been members in quite some time. We also have 9306970048504757543853 (I've counted) random Home Depot/non-fermenter buckets that we could get rid of. We'll obviously keep a few to use for grain, back-up keg washers, etc.....but that still leaves a lot we could get rid of IMO.

One way to tackle abandoned fermenters could be to just put a small tag on each (we've got a ton of those small tags). After two months or so any that that still have tags attached are...unclaimed. Property of the club.

(tag could say "remove when used" - signage could indicate what wwe are trying to do)

Why can't we just print out bright orange plastic peel-and-stick labels with "Fermenter Storage Tag" and include a place for members name and Phone #, rather than a one-time tag solution? Everyone gets one or two. Slap them on your fermenters. Policing the storage wall becomes a job of 2 minutes for one person, rather than 2-3 hours for two or three people over a two month period. And it puts the responsibility on the people storing them there to make sure they are tagged rather than other members. Also would deliniate what are actually fermenters as opposed to party buckets, etc. If it's not tagged, it gets bagged.

Well, I think it comes down to what we are trying to accomplish. If its about carboys that are abandoned - we just need to figure out which are being used vs. not used. If its about members with hoards of them on the storage shelves, that's another issue.

The thing is, I think there are a lot of members who have (and use) >2 carboys. Some on the shelves, some actively(?) in the ferm room or fridges, etc. So labelling two per person doesn't really address that problem b/c they will continue to move around.

A different way of handling would be to assign shelves to members - although I actually hate that idea.

I agree with Ben on this. Since we made the decision to rent the upstairs, limiting full 24/7 members to two fermenters seems unnecessary. Reed's very good point about getting party items stored upstairs will help clear out a lot of space. Organizing the keg storage would also help.

I disagreed with the decision to rent the upstairs at the time, as you recall. But now that we've done it, and are dealing with the challenges of that decision, we ought to at least enjoy the advantages of it - including there being plenty of storage space if it were utilized and organized correctly.

Just to clarify, I wasn't suggesting people only have one or two fermenters. You can have 50 if you want, but you could only store one or two labeled ones on the racks downstairs to avoid clutter and ensure fair and equitable use of the space. The cost of the upstairs was supposed to be offset by storage revenue, but if we are allowing free unlimited storage throughout the brewhouse, you are directly undermining that. If you are using the brewhouse to store your equipment, you should be paying for that priviledge, even more so now that we are burning through financial reserves to provide space for paid storage.

If Ben is the one taking this on, then he should be the one to make the call how he wants do it. And since I opened up my big mouth, I am now obligated to help him if he wants.

Rich, that would be a change in policy - only allowing 24/7 members to store two fermenters downstairs. I remember this clearly, because when supervising new members, that was one of the questions they had to answer to the form Jim C. made. At least since I've been a member, the policy has been that apprentice brewers could keep one fermenter at a time at the brewhouse and 24/7 members could store as many as they want, for free.

Nothing wrong with changing a policy, if that's what we think is best. I still think getting rid of the abandoned fermenters and storing the party stuff upstairs in the club storage room is enough. But its not my call, of course.

From the supervising sheet for new brewers, apprentice members could have only one fermenter in the ferm room at a time. 24/7 brewers did not have a limit on the number of fermenters they could store at the brewhouse. The supervising sheet from JIm C. didn't address the issue of how many fermenters 24/7 brewers could have fermenting at once. At least that is from my memory, but I'm pretty sure its accurate.

With the added shelves in the ferm room, limiting it two fermenters seems like too few, perhaps. I don't think we have an overcrowding problem in the ferm room now, do we? I can only think of one instance in the last couple of years where that was abused and it was dealt with privately, I think. There may have been others, I just don't know about them.

I agree we were not referring to the ferm room itsself, but fermenter storage

I think each bewer should be able to take up to 2 spots, and can staore as many buckets/fermenters as they can make fit in those spots, anything beyond 2 spots worth and you should rent a storage space for the overflow...

I'm 90% certain that the supervising sheet from Jim C. said that 24/7 brewers could store as many fermwnters as they want. Store, as in use the storage shelves. In any case, we had this conversation two years ago and at that time the board/officers agreed that there wasn't a limit on storing fermenters.

I still like Ben's and Reed's approach of clearing out the old unused fermenters and moving party supplies and buckets and stuff upstairs first before telling folks they can' only store two fermenters for the price of their membership.

We never made the number of carboys stored at the brewhouse official, that's why the check off list reads that way. It was more of an understanding that members would not take advantage of this and flood the brewhouse with carboys. Of course, now we have a much larger membership, so can revisit this policy. I don't think a lot of people are storing a ton of carboys, we just have a lot of brewers.

Let's start by cleaning the area out next Thursday, so we know what we're working with, then the board will take this discussion under consideration and create new guidance for carboy and keg storage.

Brandon, the answer is no. A couple of years ago, it came up, when Brock and I did the clearing out of old, abandoned or unlabeled fermenters. At that point, I was told that we had never limited the number of fermenters in storage, that the board had decided at that point to deal with excessive fermenter storage on a case-by-case basis, not with a general rule or limit. That is still the policy today, as I understand it. Which doesn't mean it can't be changed.

I also purchased and am giving the club another digital temperature controller to hook up to the lagering/cold-crash fridge, to see if we can get that to be consistently in the low 30s. I'll bring it Thursday night.

One note, It is not just fermenters, it is kegs as well. There were a couple dozen kegs shoved onto the barrel rack last I saw that should be in storage spots or elsewhere. We have never allowed free keg storage as long as I have been a member.

When we expanded the carboy storage, it was decided that the back area would be used for kegs, as well as carboys. Using the same idea of dealing with people abusing it on a case by case basis, we didn't set a limit to the kegs.

With a growth in number of club members who use kegs, we will need to revisit this rule, as well. As I mentioned above, once we know what kind of space we're working with, the board will address the carboy and keg storage issue.

Thanks to everyone who joined us at the brewhouse last night! You all did an amazing job. The brew areas, upstairs, front bar, bathrooms, and carboy/keg storage areas are clean and looking great! Behind the grain mill was particularly horrifying, but is now good to go!!

We power washed pretty much the entire brewing area and keezer, so let's try to not make last night's work in vain or the next deep clean harder than it needs to be. Please, please clean up after yourselves when using the brewhouse.

Thanks for organizing Matt and kudos for managing to get so many people to do a job nobody wants to. Always an eye opener how much crud just gets pushed to the back or covered up.

Just a note, if anyone had hops or non-expired yeast in the back fridge, it is probably still there, just down in the bottom drawer. I tried not to throw anything away that didn't look abandoned, but most other stuff in there was thrown out, including the impressive collection of salsa containers from the taco place. If those were one of your experiments, James, sorry dude.